Regrets

IRC

JB: Set up a time to debug and trouble shoot the use of IRC. The W3C site
has basic materials on the IRC. Sometime in the next few weeks we will try to
do coordinated follow up on the IRC.

SLH: Would someone be willing to organize this?

JB: I will do this.

AA: I will be happy to test with people who are having trouble with
firewall.

Outreach Updates

AA: Last week Vision Australia Foundation presented a very successful
workshop in Brisbane to around 20 folk from state and local government and
tertiary institutions on web accessibility - what it is, why do it,
guidelines, what to avoid, and how to start testing. With some of our staff
we have also just returned from AusWeb03 on the Gold Coast where several
sessions addressed accessibility issues and I gave the opening keynote
address - quite a privilege. The papers are available from http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw03/conf/program.html.
The keynotes were videoed and are also available (but not accessibly).

AC: We just finished a weeklong course on Web accessibility in Madrid. We
had 10 people.

JB: What type of curriculum do you use?

AC: The first half-day is about disabilities. Then, access strategies, two
days of techniques, authoring tools, Flash, pdf, evaluation, analysis, and
resources.

JB: We want to add longer curriculum suggestions into the training suite.
We could come up with a 5-day outline.

AC: The longest one is 1 day?

JB: 3 days?

AC: There is no 5-day training.

JB: Alan, you’re right. We don’t have anything more than 1
day.

JB: Thank you Charmane for your suggestions on Training Suite changelog. I
will work on these.

AA: I can add a 2-day one.

JB: Alan, do you have follow-up activities?

AC: No

Euroaccessibility Communication Plan

PG: We met with Euroaccessibility group and decided to set up
communication plan for the Web site. We will update the Web site. The Web
site is euroaccessibility.org.

JB: Who is the contact person for the site?

PG: Me. Communication plan will be sent to all members by July 18. You
will find the answers you need.

JB: Earlier this week, I presented at E-government 2003 in Como, Italy. I
talked about WCAG 2.0 and training resources. There were representatives from
e-Africa. There was a draft resolution or principles coming out of the
conference. The accession countries (new countries from Eastern Europe) are
countries coming into EU. They will have requirements from EU for Web
accessibility.

July Face-to-Face Meeting

Scribes

JB: On July meetings, registration is still open. We were going to close
it today but we had a request to extend until July 15 because of an event in
California. We have 20 for Wednesday, 26 for Thursday. Shawn and I are
looking at presentation proposals and trying to arrive at a balance of
presentations. We’re going to need scribes to be rotating for each of
the three days. Would anyone be willing to help?

CC: I can help.

SLH: Harvey volunteered.

AC: I can try.

JB: Shawn, you have suggestions for how to do this.

SLH: I can meet with scribes to brief them.

Usability Testing

JB: One of the working group items is user-centered design of the WAI
site. I will turn this part of the meeting over to Shawn.

SLH: One of the common steps in the redesign process are to identify
problems and weaknesses in current sites. This can be done through several
techniques. One of these is usability testing. Someone offered to do
usability testing at no cost. The goals are: 1. Identify strengths,
weaknesses, and opportunities; 2.provide benchmark for measuring
improvements. The usability testing will be done by a few individuals so
won’t be able to do statistically significant benchmarking. We want to
get qualitative and some quantitative data. The group is American Institutes
for Research (AIR).

CC: What would the sample number have to be to be significant?

SLH: We will have 4 to 8. We are way off.

LC: May need a sample size of at least 30 to do significance testing.
Should consider characteristics of participants.

AA: What about including users from different countries, language,
cultural backgrounds. Would it be possible to repeat this in other countries.
We might be able to do this in Australia.

SLH: This would be wonderful. I am happy with the rigor of the process. We
should do similar testing with a prototype. Because our goal is not
scientific rigor, can have different facilitators in different locations. Any
ideas on how can encourage others to do tests?

AA: Do you work with usability companies?

SLH: There is an organization in the UK.

LC: Could put procedures on Web site and have common way to input data.

SLH: May want to seek others who can aggregate data.

JB: If we open it broadly, we could have little control over profiles.

AA: I was thinking of doing it with groups that we know about and not open
to the public.

SLH: We want to keep scope small. We discussed how much time would be
needed from EOWG and myself.

JB: As you talk about specifics, we should keep emphasizing the
expectations for EOWG.

SLH: We should define parameters of participants. We can consider age,
experiences, job roles, people with disabilities, and so on. Do we want
participants who have seen WAI site. Another aspect is the pretest questions.
What do we want to ask before the test starts? How do they use the
Internet? What is the role of Web accessibility in their organization,
what they like about Web sites. What do they want from WAI site? What do you
know about Web accessibility? I will send to the list sample questions and we
will use as a framework for our discussion. We will also include posttest
questions. What do you like/not like about the site? Ask users to complete
tasks using the Web site. For example, you have been asked to evaluate a Web
site for accessibility, find resources to do this. Typically, could do 5 to
10 tasks.

AA: What is the size of the pool?

SLH: Either 4 or 8. We are hoping for 8.

JB: I hope for 8. What are the disability considerations?

SLH: We want to have at least this many people, have never seen WAI site,
have used it a little, have used it quite a bit.

JB: Need to consider experiences with assistive technology. Want to test
Web site, rather than familiarity with assistive technology.

AA: Probably want people who use the Web. Someone who doesn’t use
the Web may not go to WAI site. Need to consider experience with assistive
technology. People who need supporting information, developers who are
looking for techniques.

SLH: Yes, these are all know considerations for usability testing for
accessibility. Should we tlak more about htis now, or save for next week?

JB: Probably save for next week. Do you feel clear about how this is
going? Role of EO is to give some guidance to questions Shawn. Most of the
work would be done by AIR and, possibly, a few others. The outcome would be
to bring information back to the WG and passed along to whoever is helping
with redesign.

CC: Could we do a dry run on the process?

SLH: This is a significant chunk of time and requires considerable
coordination of resources.

JB: We need to be aware of what we can do. How resource intensive is the
aggregation of results? Does adding people to the process help or hinder the
process?

SLH: Part is conducting tests. Test per participant is 2 hours.
Recruitment is 2 hours + or -.

JB: It wouldn’t hurt to bring in additional data except with regard
to questions of balance.

SLH: [Asked for clarification.]

JB: What happens if we other people’s data coming in? Does this
help or hurt?

SLH: We hadn’t talked to them about this. That would be expanding
the scope of the project that we discussed. We can use the data ourselves. We
need to consider time and priority.

JB: Aggregation of data is a concern. What is the concern? Is it the small
number of people? We need to keep this manageable.

CC: My concern is that we test the process to determine whether this is
what we want to do.

SLH: They will do a pilot test. We are invited to participate. Any
individual who is interested in doing this, can do it themselves. You could
conduct informal usability test with the draft protocol.

CC: It’s important for us to do a dry run. We should do this before
their pilot.

SLH: I will be there for the pilot.

MK: I may be available.

CC: Could people do it remotely simultaneously?

SLH: This possible but it is not in the budget. They have done usability
testing in other locations.

JB: We should provide guidance for the process—almost oversight.
But, not on a detailed level.We should be careful not to unnecessarily
complicate the process. One of the issues who should address next week is the
question of roles. How do we manage our interests and involvement?

MK: Might get different results if do it in Europe.

JB: There are a few possibilities there. Some of cultural orientation may
not be able to be captured locally. We have discussed a few ways that we
could address this.

Notes for Face-to-Face Meeting

SLH: Would be helpful to clarify what we would want to talk about next
week.

JB: We want a list of issues, which might be long, and proposed answers or
approaches and type of framework. Who wants to do an issue capture?

SLH: 1. Clarify that one of the concerns is time and effort of EOWG,
including myself. This isn’t the top priority that should take our
time away from everything else. 2. Possibly conducting test in other
countries. We don’t want to have a totally open process because it
would take too many of our resources. How could we work with groups in other
countries? 3. Clarify the role of EOWG in the process. Brainstorm specific
aspects such as participants, tasks. 4. Characteristics of participants,
tasks, pre and post test questions.

MK: Write down processes and procedures. What are things that we have to
think about such as internationalization?

JB: Documenting the process.

MK: To provide one example of how this is done.

JB: How much additional work would this take?

SLH: There is a good project that we could feed this into. We could take
rough notes as we do. ITTAC is doing a project that might help.

JB: I don’t think that EO should be involved in aggregation. We
should use an organization that has experience. Should not collect data and
then not aggregate it.

SLH: Andrew, can you please send what you sent to IRC to me?

LC: Can you please send to list?

AA: I’ll rewrite and send to list.

Dublin Meeting

Minutes:

JB: Thinking more about the meeting in Dublin. Here are some parameters.
We have a venue and meeting host. Microsoft is the host. The venue is same
location as AAATE conference. We have an update from Pierre and Dominique
that Euroaccessibility would try not to conflict with our meetings. We should
have one day on EO deliverables; one day on training exchange. Important need
is to focus on evaluation best practices. Need to have time for discussion
between EO group and Euroaccessibilty group. Wednesday afternoon noon could
be the joint meeting. Thursday be the best practice exchange. Friday would be
the EO meeting. Daniel Dardailler and I have been getting questions on role
of WAI and Euroaccessibility. On Wednesday, we should share information about
both organizations, clarify roles of organizations; open discussion to groups
beyond these two. The dates are Sept. 3, 4, and 5.

PG: I totally agree on what you said about clarification of role of WAI
and Euroaccessibility. You will also have a chance to comment on the
communication plan.

JB: I want to get on that list. Does this agenda sound good?

PG: The agenda sounds good.

LC: Terrific

CC: Great

MK: Sounds good

NL: Sounds good

AA: yes

SLH: yes

JB: I will send a message to WG about our intent and agenda. I will ask if
people are planning to attend and if you have an objection to the meeting. I
hope to publicly announce it soon.

All: All participants agree

JB: Any comments about Dublin meeting?

PG: We’ll have to write a message for the Euroaccessibility
list.

Training Suite

JB: We have come to the end of the agenda that was sent out. We look back
at an item on the list. Charmane had put together. The subject line is
“commented change log on training suite.” We had a
teleconference where we freshened our memory of the training resource suite.
We came up with a few principles. Charmane has volunteered to go through the
change log and organize the comments.

CC: I don’t have a copy of it.

JB: Friday, June 27 from Corcora1. Charmane has categorized discussions
from March 24, March 13, February 22. January 30.We could group dusting off
and to not discuss them. Group the ones that need discussion and to discuss
these. Change log also needs to be clarified.

JB: I may simplify, reorganize, and categorize. Will this work?

EO participants: yes

Plans for next week

JB: Looking forward to seeing you.

PG: You need old slides?

SLH: No, I don’t need them.

MK: It would be nice to see them on our own computers and make them
available to people who do not attend the meeting.

JB: This may not be doable. If people produce presentations that are not
accessible, we may not be able to post them. Shawn, you and I can see what we
can do.